Close to the Heart
by Otter Child
Summary: A Time Lord is given the gift of seeing all Time, and the curse of understanding that all things will eventually end. The Doctor must help his daughter learn to accept the gift, and the burden.
1. Chapter 1

Perfect.

Jenny grinned from her place in the wagon, pushing her pale braid back over her shoulder. The young red-haired human beside her returned the smile, and flicked the reigns, moving the oxen into a trot.

Jenny was so glad that she'd asked where the Goth culture had come from after the concert they'd seen. It had sent her father off into a rant, and in a little time they'd ended up here in the fourth century, on the other side of the Danube from the Roman Empire. And Jenny hadn't been so happy in ages. The land in this time period was beautiful, rolling green as far as the eye could see. Everywhere, there was laughter as the wagon wheels creaked and the cattle called.

"Can you see the lambs, Jenn-nea?" the young man called to her over the creak of the wheels. With one hand, he pointed out a few lambs gamboling ahead of the sheep herd. One nearly turned a summersault in the air. Jenny laughed, and the red haired man laughed with her. "See? They are as happy as me to be on the move again!"

The Tervigini tribe were on the move to better grazing land, and the day was perfect for travel. The sky stretched on forever, a blue more blue than the eye could take in all at once, the sun at the peak of the heavens like a blazing marble. The wind whistled across her face, sweet with the scent of grass.

Beside her, the man called Ailwin glanced into the bed of his wagons, checking the bundles placed inside. He nodded to himself, then clicked his tongue, urging the oxen forward. Jenny looked around. The people of the tribe rode or walked and talked around the wagon, laughing and prodding their animals forward. Some rode ahead and back, passing along information. It seemed that almost everyone over the age of eight had a horse. Young children ran laughing between the wagons, their hair shining in the sun. Some of them had hair even lighter than Jenny's own, while others had deep blonde or red locks. Dark hair was apparently pretty rare, and her father's hair had engendered a few comments. But they'd been lucky. The Doctor had told them that he and his daughter were travelling from a death ceremony of a cousin in another tribe, and they'd been welcomed to travel with the tribe as long as they were headed in the same direction. Jenny could see him from her seat on the wagon, walking among the people and chattering like a com-box on fast-forward. The red cloak he'd chosen set off his dark hair, though the long linen tunic, baggy linen trousers and low boots he'd put on in the Wardrobe made him look stick-thin next to the tall, stocky Tervigini. She smiled. He was having a good time.

The blue cloak she'd chosen slipped from her shoulder again. With a frown, she pulled it up.

"I think that cloak may be too big for you." Ailwin teased her. "I think it must be." Jenny agreed, trying to keep to the people's speaking style, "It's one of my father's, and the clasps are set for him." She undid the clasped brooches, re-organizing the fabric tighter around her shoulders, though she really didn't need the warmth. But the cloak was thin, and seemed to be more for fashion than heat.

The wagons tracked across the endless rolling land, pacing the sun overhead. As the sun began to set, the first wagon in the train stopped. Ailwin laughed. "Finally! My backside has no love of this wagon!"

People gathered around the wagons, lifting down long spars of wood. In very short time three corralles were set up, the sheep and goats driven into one, the horses into another and the cows in the last. The oxen were loosed and left to graze.

The Doctor grinned at his daughter. "Having fun?" Jenny grinned back, nodding.  
"There's not much recorded on this time period," her father said, " so it's a great chance to pick up more of their dialect and customs. Friendly people too. The Romans really should've tried to make friends with them, you know." He broke off as Ailwin came walking over.

"Well friends, will you join us for the Setting and the Blessing tonight?" "We will and gladly." The Doctor said jovially. He shot his daughter an excited smile as Ailwin walked away. "Know what that means? We're going to observe some of their religious rites. Nearly completely unstudied, Gothic religious beliefs. What a chance! C'mon, let's get a good spot in the queue."

Reverently, two carved stones were lifted from the backs of the first wagon in line, and set in the ground. A song was sung, and a black goat and a white sheep were brought out and killed in front of the stones while a fire pit was dug. Then the men set a fire, skinned the animals, and began to cook them. From somewhere in the crowd, some sort of flute blew. A stringed instrument joined in, and in no time there was dancing.

Late in the evening, they sat around the fire, eating the Blessing meat, drinking mead and chatting. Jenny, who'd been hearing stories about Carloman's time dealing with Roman soldiers and playing at wrestling with the young warriors, watched as Ailwin pulled a small bronze figure of a horse from his belt. He touched the meat to the horse's mouth, whispering a few words.

"Is that your lucky charm?" Jenny asked, biting into her share of the meat. Ailwin smiled. "The Horse is my guardian," he said, holding out the little figurine. It was finely modeled, with one hoof up pawing the air and its head thrown back. "when I was a child I was struck in the leg by a wild horse. It should have shattered the bone, but it left me only with a scar. The Women with Wit examined me, and told my parents that I had been blessed by the spirit of the Horse. So I honor her always."

Jenny nodded. A lot of early cultures had this idea. "It's lovely." Ailwin nodded, and fingered the little horse.

"Jenn-nea, do you think your people will come the Summer Festival?" Jenny glanced at the young man, and shrugged. "Perhaps."

Ailwin nodded, staring at the fire. "I am nineteen years old. I've been in three cattle-raids. I have two fine horses, goods, ten head of cattle, six in calf, and sixteen sheep. I enjoy talking with you. If you have no man in your sights…think of me come the summer?"

Jenny smiled. "I'll do that." Then she leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. He grinned.


	2. Chapter 2

Budapest was an amazing city in 2015, filled with sun and crowds. The Doctor and Jenny walked hand-in-hand through the streets, studying the architecture. The trip to the 4th century had gotten Jenny interested in Eastern European history, and they'd taken a chronological tour, though they'd agreed to skip visiting the two world-wars in person and read up on them instead; the Doctor because he had no interest in getting tangled up in the events of either world war again, and Jenny because she knew she couldn't stand to see battles she couldn't join.

The Doctor grinned as his daughter pulled him through a gaggle of tourists. "Look, Father!" she called out, pointing, "There's the Millennium Monument!"  
"And the art gallery!" The Doctor replied, pointing away to the right.

"Hey, the Mathias Church! Wow has it changed in a few centuries"

"Yup. We could barely get in the door during that king's coronation."

"Yeah. _And _I had to wear a dress. With a bloody _bodice._"

"Oh, Jenny, get over the dress."

They spent the day exploring, climbed Gellert Hill to stand in the Citedella and look out over the Danube, investigated the Castle District and strolled along the New Main Street, pointing sites out to one another. The Doctor grabbed Jenny's hand. "The Hungarian National Museum! _Malto bene._ Come on!"

He glanced at his daughter with a grin as he paid for their tickets. She rolled her eyes. She didn't think much of his interest in museums. "Why the hell do you want to look at dead artifacts?" she'd asked more than once, "We can see them alive." She didn't seem to understand that he was interested in how species showed reverence and interest for Time's passing, but she tolerated it.

They poked about the roman and the modern lapidary, then wandered upstairs to the first floor, where there was an exhibit labeled 'On the East-West Frontier' They looked over mannequins of people that the Doctor couldn't help but mention were dressed incorrectly for the time period they displayed, sculptures, remnants of the cultures and a very pretty facsimile of a period dwelling. Their eyes ran over pretty gold and bronze adornments, urns, pots, even a chariot.

The Doctor was happily studying the work on a bronze bowl, when a sense of something uncomfortable trickled across his mind. He glanced up, looking for his daughter. Spotting her bent form, he shrugged the feeling off, strolling over to her. "Anything interesting?"

Jenny looked up, and gave him a slight smile. But the enthusiasm seemed to have gone out of her for some reason. "Not really. I guess not."

The Doctor glanced into the display case, filled with ornaments and small figurines. They were labeled as grave goods. Nothing that interesting, the Doctor thought. Rows of little animal figurines. Little dogs and eagles, and almost twenty boring, placid little horses. The only interesting one was the little greenish bronze creature in the center; unlike its brethren, it had a hoof out to paw the air, and its head thrown back as if it was neighing. Very pretty little thing really.

Jenny turned away from the case. "Can we go now?"

"There's three more floors to the museum Jenny." The Doctor said distractedly, "Buck up!"  
When the reply came, Jenny's voice was small and disconsolate. "Yes sir." The Doctor looked up, and studied her carefully. "Something up?"

Jenny shook her head, her eyes lowered. "Nothing really. Somebody…somebody walked over my grave, I guess. What do you want to see next?"

The Doctor took her hand. "We can see this another day. C'mon. You look a bit peaky."


	3. Chapter 3

She's in a mood. He can tell by the music that blares out of her room every time he walks by; Green Day's 'Are We Waiting', Billy Joel's 'Running On Ice', a recording she had made of a battle chant sung by Boudicca's army, a bit of Flogging Molly, and one of those bands that either comes from Earth's Grunge period or Ectarathe Prome's sixtieth century classic Songs for the Deaths of the Enemy genre. He tends to mix those two up; they both involve grating voices saying something unintelligible.

The Doctor listened, passing her door again. He's got the sneaking suspicion that the TARDIS is reorganizing the halls to ensure that he passes her room as often as possible. Jenny's eclectic about her music. But the emotional content was obvious. Anger, bitterness. And loneliness.

When she's ready to talk to him, she will. He believes in giving people their space.

Hours later, he stopped in the middle of the corridor. He'd been heading for the auxiliary absorption chamber, but the hallway ends in Jenny's door. The Doctor rapped a hand on the wall of the TARDIS. "Oi, none of that. Auxiliary absorption chamber I said." He turned, and took another hall. But it, too, ended at Jenny's white door, which she'd painted with a geometrically perfect five-pointed star. She'd painted it there after they'd talked with an old man called Thyocletes, who had shown his daughter star charts and explained how the planet Venus traced what he called the Symbol of Perfection across the sky every five years. He had expected the TARDIS to be displeased, but she didn't seem to mind.

The Doctor frowned, and rapped on the wall. "Something wrong with your architecture configuration circuits now?" The response he got was something like a sharp poke to the brain. Nothing was wrong with the ship, and he knew it.

"She's fine! I'm not going in there," he groused aloud, "and I don't think it's in great taste for the ship to tell the pilot what to do!" The response he got was like a hard slap across the back of his head. The Doctor winced. "All right! All right, I'm going." He glared up at the roof of the corridor. "Meddling old tin."

Considering the level that Jenny's playing her music at, the Doctor's surprised that she hears his knock.

"Come in."

"Sorry to bother you," he says as he opens the door, "TARDIS said you had a problem, so I just thought I'd pop in and give a check."

Jenny was sitting on her sleeping mat, staring at the poster of the Eagle Nebulae tacked to her wall. She tapped a pad, and the volume of the music lowered to a murmur.

"I'm fine."

"Ah. Right."

The sleeping mat gave a sound like a sigh as he sat beside his child. Jenny glanced up at her father. She flashed him a smile when he caught her eyes, barely a flicker of the lips, before looking away.

A low chant echoed from the walls. "Where's this from?" the Doctor asked. Jenny tapped the pad in her hands. "Buixe. Seventieth century." Then she lapses into silence. The chant whispers through the room.

"You know," the Doctor says into the quiet, "The TARDIS isn't often wrong."

Jenny shrugged, her pale face turned away. "It's nothing. No big deal."

"Ah." The Doctor said, "'Course it isn't." Then he was silent, sitting beside her. A song whispered from the walls.

_Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea  
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see_

"I guess… It's just dust, isn't it?" Jenny's voice was loud in the quiet. Her words sounded brittle. "Everything's just dust in the end. The whole universe. All these people, all these cultures working hard, gathering knowledge, but in the end it's pointless. They die. They fall apart. Timelines end. The universe ends." She shrugged, a disconsolate gesture. "Nothing lasts."

"What brought this up?" the Doctor asked quietly. Jenny shrugged. "Nothing much Just…thinking, I guess."

"Well, you're right in a sense" The Doctor agreed, "Nothing lasts forever, but some things do last a long while. You and me will last for a while. And there's always Time, of course."

"Time ends." Jenny murmurs, staring at her hands. "So do we. Thirteenth lifetime, and you're out. Gone."

"You think so?" the Doctor asks, dark eyes studying his daughter. She smiles ruefully, eyes on her hands. "You got a better idea?"

The music plays on, filling their silence as the Doctor thinks. Once, he could have comforted her with the knowledge of the Matrix, where every Time Lord consciousness was stored eternally. But even the Matrix was gone now.

"Did I ever tell you that there was a Gallifreyan religion once?" the Doctor asked. His voice sounded too loud, too bright, but he went on. "It was ancient stuff of course. It was losing favor when Rassilon was a kid. Based on pretty primitive ideas; avatars of Life, Time, Death, Knowledge, personifications that could actually be contacted, that sort of thing. Researchers and historians _hated_ to admit that we'd gone through the childish stage like every other species, but there you go. Anyway, one of the big tenants stuck around. How many dimensions do you think there are?"

Again, Jenny shrugged. "Trillions. Probably trillions of trillions."

"True." The Doctor said, nodding. "Dimensions branch out like a tree with more branches than you can shake a stick at. And this is where the interesting bit comes in. Trees have trunks, and trees start from seeds, am I right?"

Jenny looked up questioningly. "Yeah. So?"

"So," the Doctor said, his eyes shining, "our…" he considered English words, but nothing gave the proper nuances of philosopher, priest, and engineer. He gave it up and spoke the Gallifreyan name, "Our _eamalai_ of the time said that it was the same with the universe. It was hypothesized that there was a prime dimension, a perfect first dimension. And what's interesting is that calculations and exploratory research proved it to be true. Nobody ever got into it, but they found the boundaries of it. They called it _seatlamatioln."_

"Heart of Time." Jenny translated.

"Heart and soul." The Doctor agreed. "The Template for everything in existence. Every time and place exists together in the Heart of Time. And they exist in their most perfect form. Unsullied. Every animal, every moment, every star and every person, in their most perfect form. You could call it the backup system for the Universe, I guess." He smiled at Jenny, who smiled at him, her midnight-blue eyes glimmering wetly. "And the best thing about this fairy story is that it isn't a story. Each time the universe collapses, new matter issues from the Heart. And the Universe starts again, growing from the Template. Like a plant after winter."

Tears were running down Jenny's face now as she gazed at her father, his eyes wide and bright as he continued. "It was proved that all versions of an individual were connected to their Template, bands stretching away from the Heart, and on cessation they snap back, reintegrated into their Template. You die, you wake up in the Heart of Time." He smiled, remembering, and took a slightly shaky breath. "There was this old poem we learned as kids, I got in the habit of quoting it years ago. 'All things have their time,' it went, 'and all things die, each in their lines of time. Save in the Heart of All Time, where all Life is, and Life reigns sublime. So reach to Life, and take Her hand, and work in Her aid forever. In thirteen turns those who are her own wake within her Heart.' The work of the Time Lords, the Work we were told when we were little Tots in the Prydon nursery, was to make the Universe as close to the Heart as possible. As perfect as this poor old echo of a place could be."

Jenny smiled waveringly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "I like that."

The Doctor nodded. With one hand, he reached out, brushing away another tear from his daughter's cheek. She let out a little laugh. "I'm a wimp." Then, impulsively, she put her arms around her father, burying her head against his chest. "Thanks, Dad."

He wrapped his arms around her, stroking her shining hair. "'Course. Any time."

A new song began to play softly.

_Carry on my wayward son  
There'll be peace when you are done  
Lay your weary head to rest  
Don't you cry no more_

The Doctor's lips curved in a bemused smile. "By the way, when did you become a Kansas fan?"

In his arms, his daughter began to laugh through her tears. The Doctor smiled, pressing a kiss on his daughter's hair.


	4. Chapter 4

"Jenny-" the Doctor shot a command to the TARDIS, and Jenny's door cracked open. With one foot, he pushed the door open, his arms full of clothes. "You left your things in the dryer again! If you'd just-" He peered over the tottering pile, then snorted. " Of course, she's out. She would be out. Six years old and she still can't put her own clothes in the drawer…" He set the clothes down on Jenny's dresser, glaring at them. "Teenager."

Something flickered in the corner of his eye, and he turned. There was a new poster up on Jenny's wall beside the Eagle Nebulae. It depicted a gigantic tree, vitally alive, branches twisting in every direction. A number of localized temporal loops had been done on the paper, making the paint of the leaves appear and disappear. It made the leaves look as if they were rustling in the breeze.

The Doctor drew a deep breath, and smiled. Then he turned away, and softly, walked out of the room. The door closed behind him.


End file.
